Writing an article is fun and can be accomplished in a few easy steps. Once your article is published anyone can view it by simply navigating to the AreaGuides website you posted it on, and clicking on the Articles Tab in the top navigation bar or searching by keyword.

Articles (such as this one) that have general interest will be posted on all 4 AreaGuides regional websites and can be viewed from any one of them.

The sites include two in North Carolina, BrunswickCounty.com, and LakeNorman.com, and two in Florida, ChooseSarasota.com and ChooseBradenton.com.

To post an article, first create your text in a Word or other word processing document. Once you have spell checked it and edited it you are ready to post! The author logs on to the website by clicking on "user login" at the very top of the home page. then you click on the “submit article” button on the left side as shown in the graphic to the right.

You will be directed to a page containing Table of Contents for our Articles. When you are ready to start posting your article, click the “OK – I’m ready…I want to write” button to navigate to the “Submit New Article” page. Now the fun begins.

There are multiple categories of topics for articles including News, Sports, Family and more. Currently we place your article in the appropriate categories for you, so you do not have to worry about it. Looking at the list of topics may give you ideas for future articles you would like to do!

The article creation template offers text areas and picture areas to help you create an eye catching article with no technical knowledge of publishing on the internet.When you are done typing or cutting and pasting from your word processer, save your creation....Now you can preview your article to see how it will look on the web! Simply click on the “View Article” button at the bottom of the page.

Keep in mind that since we are live on the internet we have to limit long periods of inactivity. If your article takes an extraordinarily long time to write....more than 40 minutes...please click the submit button as you compose so it does not time out. This is one reason we suggest you compose in a word document and then cut and paste! You can also use the spell check in your word document to catch typos! You may reture to your article to continue composing or edit as may times as you would like.

Add a PICTURE! Our articles allow up to 3 pictures to be inserted in the text, and those pictures can be displayed in two different formats...we call them templates. You simply click the "Upload New Image" radio dot as shown in the graphic to the right, and then "Browse" your computer and download the picture. There are 3 different picture areas and 3 different text areas....you do not have to use all 3.

Our program will automatically size the picture, and place it in the text area as you see in this article. Our article is using template 2....the default template (if you do no choose) is Template 1... all pictures down the right side of the article.

AreaGuides websites provide you with everything needed to submit articles for your friends and neighbors to enjoy.

These articles are "live" on the internet and will be found by search engines! People around the world will be reading your "creation", and marveling at your creative writing skills!

Thank you for being a part of and supporting AreaGuides websites. Please check out our sponsor businesses and tell them you saw them on our AreaGuide websites!